Sep 8, 2017

Soon after oil was found in Pennsylvania during 1859, John
Cassell, publisher and coffee merchant, began importing it to
London. Cassell came up with a name for the substance, inspired
by his own name, cazeline. On 27 November 1862 he placed an
advertisement in The Times that stated, "The Patent Cazeline
Oil, safe, economical, and brilliant … possesses all the
requisites which have so long been desired as a means of
powerful artificial light.

The first use of gasoline to be found in America is in an 1864
Act of Congress which declared a tax on the oil.

Cassell discovered a shopkeeper in Dublin, Samuel Boyd selling
counterfeit cazeline and wrote to him to ask him to stop. Boyd
did not reply, but instead went through his stock, changing with
a single dash of his pen, every ‘C’ into a ‘G’ and gazeline was
born.

Aug 16, 2013

Gas is one derivative of crude oil. Heat from one
gallon of gas is enough to power a 1,500-watt space heater on full
blast for 24-hours. If it were possible for humans to digest
gasoline, a gallon would contain about 31,000 food calories. That is
about equivalent to the energy in about 110 McDonald's hamburgers.

Dec 24, 2010

When the price of crude oil goes up a dollar, the price we pay per gallon goes up about 2.5 cents a gallon. When you read about oil going up to a hundred dollars a barrel in the next few weeks, you can expect to pay about 25 cents more at the pump.